12 Beautiful Celebrity Roses

As spring arrives and the rose bushes begin to bud up, what better time is there to look at pictures of gorgeous roses? While looking at pictures, I found some interesting stories behind some of the many rose cultivars that have been named for celebrities. Feast your eyes on the beauty of a dozen of them.

1. President Herbert Hoover

Rose breeder Gene Boerner developed a rose that displayed a gaudy combination of orange, pink, and yellow that won a gold medal at New York's International Flower show in 1929. Inspired by Herbert Hoover's 1928 campaign slogan, "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage," Boerner named the cultivar President Herbert Hoover. By the time the rose went on sale in 1930, the Great Depression had reared its ugly head, and the rose did not sell well. Boerner learned a lesson, and later advised other growers not to name roses after politicians.

2. Julia Child

Plant breeder Tom Carruth has developed more All-American roses than anyone else. HIs yellow floribunda rose Julia Child won All-American honors in 2006. Chef Julia Child herself selected the rose to be named in her honor before she died in 2004. The rose is sold by Weeks Roses.

3. Ingrid Bergman

The Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman died of cancer in 1982. It wasn't long afterward that she was honored with a rose cultivar. The World Federation of Rose Societies named the rose known as Ingrid Bergman the "World Favourite Rose" in 2000, and inducted it into their Hall of Fame. It was developed by Pernille and Mogens Olesen of the Danish rose company Poulson in 1983 and has won numerous awards in the years since it was introduced in 1984. The patent for the rose has expired, so it can be grown from cuttings and propagated, but the company registered a trademark on the name, so propagated roses cannot be sold under the name Ingrid Bergman.

4. Dolly Parton

The Dolly Parton rose was developed by Joe Winchell in the basement of his home, where he experimented with growing roses under plant lights through the winter. It was introduced in 1984. The orange-red hybrid tea rose is as colorful and spicy as its namesake. Parton reportedly was flattered that a rose was named after her, as she thought a wildflower might have been more appropriate. Her namesake roses grow at Parton's home and at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

5. Lynn Anderson

Photo credit: Getty Images

Lynn Anderson's biggest hit was the 1970 song "Rose Garden," which was #1 on Billboard's country chart for five weeks and reached #3 on their pop chart. Joe Winchell of the American Rose Society cultivated a hybrid tea rose that became known as Lynn Anderson in 1995.

6. Betty White

Finding information on the Betty White rose by search is difficult, because Betty White played a character named Rose in The Golden Girls TV series. Also, there are a lot of white roses. The hybrid tea rose was introduced by Meilland International under the name André le Nôtre in 2001. It was imported to the US in 2004 and renamed Betty White. This rose is old-fashioned, vigorous, and sweet—just like our favorite comedienne.

7. Marie Curie

The Marie Curie rose was bred by Alain Meilland of Meilland International in 2003. It was introduced in Belgium as the White Marie Curie in 2006, but as you can see, it comes in colors, too.

8. Natasha Richardson

Photo credit: Getty Images

Actress Natasha Richardson died in 2009 in a skiing accident in Quebec. In 2011, her mother, actress Vanessa Redgrave, was at the Chelsea Flower Show for a ceremony to unveil the new cultivar named Natasha Richardson. All proceeds of the sales of the light pink rose go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The rose is grown exclusively by UK grower Harkness.

9. Mark Twain

American writer Mark Twain has been honored with schools, buildings, awards, and even an asteroid named after him, so why not a rose? The Mark Twain rose was bred by Richard Huber in Switzerland and named in 2000. It is described as a good rose to cut, and quite durable as well as sweetly-scented.

10. Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II died in 2005, after reigning for 27 years. In 2006, rose company Jackson & Perkins worked with the Vatican to develop a white hybrid tea rose named for the late pontiff. Ten bushes were planted at the Vatican, and the company gives 10 percent of the proceeds to the Vatican, which they designated for a charity to aid sub-Saharan Africans.

11. Liv Tyler

Meilland International was commissioned by Givenchy Perfumes to create a rose to be used in a new perfume. The rose was developed in 2001 and the perfume, Very Irresistable, was introduced in 2003. In 2005, the rose cultivar was named after actress Liv Tyler, who was Givenchy's new spokesperson at the time. Tyler still works for Givenchy.

12. Freddie Mercury

A tribute to the singer who died in1991, the Freddie Mercury was introduced in 1994 by Eric Stainthorpe of Battersby Roses. The pink, yellow, and apricot rose is related to the Tina Turner rose. Members of the Freddie Mercury fan club raised £2,000 to name a rose in his honor. The first official bushes were given to his relatives and close friends.

In 1870, a group of new families moved to the wind-ravaged plains near what would become Cherryvale, Kansas. They were Spiritualists, a religion that was foreign to the homesteaders already in the new state, but locals tended to accept newcomers without asking too many questions. Two of the families moved away within a year, discouraged by the difficult conditions, and the others kept to themselves. But the Benders were different.

At first, they appeared be a normal family. John Bender, Sr., and his troupe settled near the Great Osage Trail (later known as the Santa Fe Trail) over which innumerable travelers passed on their way to the West. The older Bender, called "Pa," made a claim for 160 acres in what is now Labette County. His son John (sometimes called Thomas) claimed a smaller parcel that adjoined Pa's land, but never lived on or worked it. The Benders also included "Ma" and a daughter named Kate, who advertised herself as Spiritualist medium and healer. Ma and Pa reportedly mostly spoke German, although the younger Benders spoke fluent English.

The group soon built a one-room home equipped with a canvas curtain that divided the space into two areas. The front was a public inn and store, and the family quarters were in the back. Travelers on the trail were welcome to refresh themselves with a meal and resupply their wagons with liquor, tobacco, horse feed, gunpowder, and food. Kate, who was reportedly attractive and outgoing, also drew customers to the inn with her supposed psychic and healing abilities. These men, who usually traveled alone, often spent the night.

The trail was a dangerous place, and there were many reasons for travelers to go missing on their way out West—bandits, accidents, conflicts with Native Americans, disease. But over the course of several years, more and more people went missing around the time they passed through Labette County. It usually took time for such disappearances to draw attention—mail and news traveled slowly—but that all changed in March 1873 after a well-known physician from Independence, Kansas, named Dr. William York seemingly disappeared after getting off the train at Cherryvale. Dr. York had two powerful brothers who were determined to find out what happened to him: Colonel Edward York and Kansas Senator Alexander York.

Colonel York led an investigation in Labette County. When questioned, the Benders denied all knowledge of York's disappearance, although Ma Bender "flew into a violent passion," in the words of The Weekly Kansas Chief, when asked about a report of a woman who had been threatened with pistols and knives at their inn. Ma defended herself by claiming that the visitor had been a witch, a "bad and wicked woman, whom she would kill if ever she came near them again.”

Around the same time, the township held a meeting at the Harmony Grove schoolhouse; both male Benders were in attendance. The townsfolk decided to search every homestead for evidence of the missing—but the weather turned bad, and it was several days before a search could begin.

Eventually, a neighbor noticed starving farm animals wandering the Bender property. When he investigated the inn, he found it empty: The Benders had fled. The volunteers who later arrived for the search noted that the Benders' wagon was gone; little else had been taken from the home besides food and clothing.

Though the house was empty, all else seemed normal—until someone opened a trap door in the floor. What they found beneath it was chilling.

The trap door, located behind the curtain in the Benders' private quarters, led to a foul-smelling cellar, which was drenched with blood. Horrified, the group lifted up the cabin from its foundations and dug into the ground, yet found nothing. The investigation then turned to the garden, which was freshly plowed; neighbors recalled that the garden always seemed freshly plowed.

Working through the night, the volunteers first unearthed York's body. The back of his head had been smashed, and his throat slit. Soon, they found more bodies with similar injuries. Accounts differ about the number of bodies excavated from the site, but totals hover around a dozen. In all, the Benders may have committed as many as 21 murders. Their terrible work garnered the family only a few thousand dollars and some livestock.

Investigators later pieced together the group's modus operandi. It's believed that guests at the inn were urged to sit against the separating curtain, and while dining, would be hit on the head with a hammer from behind the curtain. Their body was then dropped into the trap door to the cellar, where one of the Benders slit their unfortunate victim's throat before stripping the body of its valuables.

One man, a Mr. Wetzell, heard this theory and remembered a time when he had been at the inn and declined to sit in the designated spot near the curtain. His decision had caused Ma Bender to become angry and abusive toward him, and when he saw the male Benders emerge from behind the cloth, he and his companion decided to leave. A traveler named William Pickering told an almost identical story.

The crimes created a sensation in the newspapers, drawing journalists and curiosity-seekers from all over the country. "Altogether the murders are without a parallel," read an account reprinted in The Chicago Tribune. The Minneapolis Star-Tribunereported over 3000 people at the crime scene, with more trains arriving. A book published in Philadelphia soon after the murders were discovered, The Five Fiends, or, The Bender Hotel Horror in Kansas, described how "large numbers of people arrived upon the scene, who had heard of the ... diabolical acts of bloody murder and rapacious robbery. Hardened men were moved to tears." The house in which the murders took place was disassembled and carried away piece by piece by souvenir seekers.

An 1873 photo of the excavated grave of a victim of the Bender murders

Senator York offered a $1000 reward for the Benders, and the governor chipped in another $2000, but the reward was never claimed. In the years following the sensational crimes, several women were arrested as Ma or Kate, but none were positively identified. A number of vigilante groups claimed to have found the Benders and murdered them, but none brought back proof. The older Benders were allegedly seen on their way to St. Louis by way of Kansas City, and the younger Benders were supposedly seen heading to an outlaw colony on the border of Texas and New Mexico, but no one knows what ultimately became of them.

Investigators were likely hampered by the group’s deceit: None of the Benders were actually named Bender, and the only members who were likely related were Ma and her daughter Kate. "Pa" was reportedly born John Flickinger in the early 1800s in either Germany or the Netherlands. "Ma" is said to have been born Almira Meik, and her first husband named Griffith, with whom she had 12 children. Ma was married several times before marrying Pa, but each husband before him reportedly died of head wounds. Her daughter Kate was born Eliza Griffith. John Bender, Jr.'s real name was John Gebhardt, and many who knew them in Kansas said he was Kate's husband, not her brother.

Today, nothing remains to indicate the exact location where the Bender house stood, although there is a historical marker at a nearby rest area. Though rumors still surround the case—some say Ma murdered Pa over stolen property soon after they fled, others that Pa committed suicide in Lake Michigan in 1884—after 140 years, we will probably never know what really happened to the Bloody Benders.

The customs of the holiday season, which include St. Nicholas Day, New Years Day, and Epiphany, as well as Christmas, often incorporate earlier pagan traditions that have been appropriated and adapted for contemporary use. Customs that encourage little children to be good so as to deserve their Christmas gifts often come with a dark side: the punishment you'll receive from a monster or evil being of some sort if you aren't good! These nefarious characters vary from place to place, and they go by many different names and images.

1. KRAMPUS

As a tool to encourage good behavior in children, Santa serves as the carrot, and Krampus is the stick. Krampus is the evil demon anti-Santa, or maybe his evil twin. Krampus Night is celebrated on December 5, the eve of St. Nicholas Day in Austria and other parts of Europe. Public celebrations that night have many Krampuses walking the streets, looking for people to beat. Alcohol is also involved. Injuries in recent years have led to some reforms, such as requiring all Krampuses to wear numbers so they may identified in case of overly violent behavior.

Krampus may look like a devil, or like a wild alpine beast, depending on what materials are available to make a Krampus costume. In modern times, people can spend as much as they like to become the best Krampus around—and the tradition is spreading beyond Europe. Many cities in America have their own Krampus Nights now.

2. JÓLAKÖTTURINN

The #Yule Cat Jólakötturinn is a monster from Icelandic folklore, a huge and vicious cat said to lurk about the snowy countryside during Christmas time and eat people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve.#FolkloreThursdaypic.twitter.com/NsbN9focnI

Jólakötturinn is the Icelandic Yule Cat or Christmas Cat. He is not a nice cat. In fact, he might eat you. This character is tied to an Icelandic tradition in which those who finished all their work on time received new clothes for Christmas, while those who were lazy did not (although this is mainly a threat). To encourage children to work hard, parents told the tale of the Yule Cat, saying that Jólakötturinn could tell who the lazy children were because they did not have at least one new item of clothing for Christmas—and these children would be sacrificed to the Yule Cat. This reminder tends to spur children into doing their chores! A poem written about the cat ends with a suggestion that children help out the needy, so they, too, can have the protection of new clothing. It's no wonder that Icelanders put in more overtime at work than most Europeans.

3. FRAU PERCHTA

Tales told in Germany and Austria sometimes feature a witch named Frau Perchta who hands out both rewards and punishments during the 12 days of Christmas (December 25 through Epiphany on January 6). She is best known for her gruesome punishment of the sinful: She will rip out your internal organs and replace them with garbage. The ugly image of Perchta may show up in Christmas processions in Austria, somewhat like Krampus.

Perchta's story is thought to have descended from a legendary Alpine goddess of nature, who tends the forest most of the year and deals with humans only during Christmas. In modern celebrations, Perchta or a close relation may show up in processions during Fastnacht, the Alpine festival just before Lent. There may be some connection between Frau Perchta and the Italian witch La Befana, but La Befana isn't really a monster: she's an ugly but good witch who leaves presents.

4. BELSNICKEL

Belsnickel is a male character from southwestern German lore who traveled to the United States and survives in Pennsylvania Dutch customs. He comes to children sometime before Christmas, wearing tattered old clothing and raggedy fur. Belsnickel carries a switch to frighten children and candy to reward them for good behavior. In modern visits, the switch is only used for noise, and to warn children they still have time to be good before Christmas. Then all the children get candy, if they are polite about it. The name Belsnickel is a portmanteau of the German belzen (meaning to wallop) and nickel for St. Nicholas. See a video of a Belsnickel visit here.

Knecht Ruprecht and Ru Klaas are similar characters from German folklore who dole out beatings to bad children, leaving St. Nicholas to reward good children with gifts.

5. HANS TRAPP

Hans Trapp is an "anti-Santa" who hands out punishment to bad children in the Alsace and Lorraine regions of France. He visits children before Christmas, dressed as a scarecrow pic.twitter.com/i5TjBAmPTR

Hans Trapp is another "anti-Santa" who hands out punishment to bad children in the Alsace and Lorraine regions of France. The legend says that Trapp was a real man, a rich, greedy, and evil man, who worshiped Satan and was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He was exiled into the forest where he preyed upon children, disguised as a scarecrow with straw jutting out from his clothing. He was about to eat one boy he captured when he was struck by lightning and killed—a punishment of his own from God. Still, he visits young children before Christmas, dressed as a scarecrow, to scare them into good behavior.

6. PÈRE FOUETTARD

The French legend of Père Fouettard, whose name translates to "Father Whipper," begins with an evil butcher who craved children to eat. He (or his wife) lured three boys into his butcher shop, where he killed, chopped, and salted them. St. Nicholas came to the rescue, resurrected the boys, and took custody of the butcher. The captive butcher became Père Fouettard, St. Nicholas' servant whose job it is to dispense punishment to bad children on St. Nicholas Day.

7. THE YULE LADS

The Jólasveinar, or Yule Lads, are 13 Icelandic trolls, who each have a name and distinct personality. In ancient times, they stole things and caused trouble around Christmastime, so they were used to scare children into behaving, like the Yule Cat. However, the 20th century brought tales of the benevolent Norwegian figure Julenisse (Santa Claus), who brought gifts to good children. The traditions became mingled, until the formerly devilish Jólasveinar became kind enough to leave gifts in shoes that children leave out ... if they are good boys and girls.

8. GRÝLA

All the Yule Lads answer to Grýla, their mother. She predates the Yule Lads in Icelandic legend as the ogress who kidnaps, cooks, and eats children who don't obey their parents. She only became associated with Christmas in the 17th century, when she was assigned to be the mother of the Yule Lads. According to legend, Grýla had three different husbands and 72 children, all who caused trouble ranging from harmless mischief to murder. As if the household wasn't crowded enough, the Yule Cat also lives with Grýla. This ogress is so much of a troublemaker that The Onion blamed her for the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.